Coffee Grounds Could Be The Next Sustainable Waste Fuel

by Mark Stevenson - June 17, 2014

“I’ll have a large double-double, and fill ‘er up, please.”

What if all those wasted coffee grounds could be put to use in your car? That’s what researchers at the University of Bath are studying and they’ve found a number of different varieties of wasted coffee can be used to produce biofuel.

The biofuel produced from waste coffee grounds could be used in cars with internal combustion engines. In fact, in 2011, a car running on coffee grounds broke a world speed record for a vehicle fuelled by organic waste.

Unlike ethanol, which requires farmers to block off area to grow corn specific to producing fuel, the coffee ground waste approach makes use of waste that would either end up in compost or landfill.

With the amount of coffee produced and consumed worldwide, some believe coffee grounds are billed to be a sustainable fuel source. Considering 65 percent of Canadians consume coffee on a daily basis, this isn’t a far stretch.

With coffee-based biofuel getting closer to reality, Tim Hortons or Starbucks next menu item could be a supreme espresso for your car. You might want to hold the cream and sugar, though.

Mark Stevenson is a former IT professional turned automotive journalist. He is also Autos.ca's news editor. Mark spends an inordinate amount of time on two wheels, and lives with his dogs Nismo and Maloo.